I sprint around the dragon's jaw. Xomhyrk is lying on the stone beside its temple. Water is dripping from Icemite, still buried in the monster's skull. It's melting. The drips sound to me like the ticking of a clock.

I rush and stand over him. His armor is all but gone. Only a framework of thin wire remains, the runes on it impossibly small, and many of the strands are broken. His body is red and burned. His legs lie at wrong angles.

His eyes are closed.

“Xomhyrk!” I yell. I bend over his face. “Xomhyrk, can you hear me?”

His eyelids open a little.

“Zathar?” he says.

“You're alive!”

His eyelids close again. He sighs. “Not for much longer.”

“There must be some healing chains somewhere in all this. I'll find some. Wait!”

I stand to rush away—there have to be healing chains in someone's supply pack, at the back of the cavern where we first charged from, at least a few must be undamaged—but Xomhyrk hisses:

“Stop, Zathar!”

I turn back to him. “Xomhyrk?”

“I've met... Thousands of dwarves in my life.” He opens his eyes a little. Even that movement seems like a strain. “Thousands of runeknights. Most... They just care for money, and power... Hah. And even I wanted some treasure... I won't deny it.”

I kneel back down. His voice is faint, hard to hear.

“Most runeknights would spend their lives in the forge if they could... They don't want to risk anything. They want to get stronger, but they have no reason to. They don't want to use their power... Don't want to risk death.”

He gasps. The sound is half a death-rattle.

“I wasn't sure about this quest, you know. I wasn't sure about bringing on dwarves from outside the guild. Gollor told me not to. Said we couldn't trust them... I'm glad he was wrong.”

“Most ran,” I say. “Mostly he was right.”

“But enough remained, didn't they? Your guild especially.” He fixes his eyes on me. “I'm glad I met you and Braztak. Two dwarves with power, skill, and utter commitment. Just like me. Real dragonslayers.”

I laugh softly. “It was you and Braztak who did most of the work.”

He shakes his head. “It came close to hitting me a few times... Missed by millimeters. If you hadn't been there on its back, hurting it, I think... Think it would have hit me sooner.”

“Then I'm glad I could help.”

“You should be more than glad, Zathar. You should be... Be proud. Your runes are not the only thing uncommon about you.”

He shuts his eyes again. His breathing is growing slower.

“I need to get some healing chains,” I say. “You can't die, Xomhyrk. Not now. Not after your greatest victory.”

He laughs softly. “What better time is there?”

“There are more dragons out there. Maybe some will end up as powerful as the black one. Or more powerful. You can't die, Xomhyrk!” Tears are pouring down my face, cool streams on my red-scorched skin. “You need to keep fighting!”

“Someone else will be needed to end those dragons. You, Zathar.”

“I'm not as strong as you.”

“You will become stronger, Zathar. Zathar Runeforger. Zathar Dragonslayer.”

His eyes close.

“Xomhyrk!” I shout. “Xomhyrk!”

But he moves no more. I sit down heavily beside him and weep. My tears splash onto his armor. It's melting further, the runes worked into the wire frame vanishing. I hear a clatter behind me and turn—Icemite has fallen from the dragon and broken in two upon the floor.

“No...” I whisper. “No.”

Xomhyrk is dead. Braztak is dead. Guthah and Pellas, the tenth degrees I failed to protect, dead. All of the guild who came on this quest—dead. The Dragonslayers too. Everyone but me, slain by the dragon.

I stand up. I swallow my sobs. This no time to grieve. I stand in the middle of a ruined mountain, with no supplies, stranded many miles from civilization. I cannot sit around sobbing. If I'm to honor Xomhyrk and the title he has bestowed upon me, I must live. Find my way back to Allabrast somehow, and tell Guildmaster Wharoth what has happened here.

Then, footsteps.

I turn. They are from the other side of the dragon. I tense. Could some more of Uthrarzak's dwarves have survived? Maybe it is Runethane Broderick, hiding out until now to sweep in and take credit for killing the dragon himself.

But there is something horribly familiar about these footsteps. They are slow and deliberate, and their dull clinks suggest tungsten.

From around the dragon's head, he steps. I and the body of Xomhyrk behind me are reflected in a mirror-mask. He is resting a pollaxe upon his right shoulder, its triple-head flecked with blood. The runes on his armor emanate solid power.

How? How can he be here? Why is he here?

“I am glad to see you alive,” says Runethane Vanerak.

I can do nothing but stare in horror. Any urge to aggression is utterly suppressed by the presence of his armor.

“I congratulate you. Your power and skill have grown far greater than I ever expected.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I raise Gutspiercer to guard myself. But Vanerak's pollaxe remains rested on his shoulder.

“There is no reason for us to fight,” he says.

I step back.

“Neither is there any reason for you to run.” He turns to the side and beckons. “Runeknights, bring them forward.”

I hear further marching. Some footsteps are even, some of them are stumbling, scraping. Eight runeknights in supremely worked tungsten armor emerge from behind the dragon's head. Five of these pull dwarves with them, whose armor has been stripped. But these prisoners are also wrapped in healing chains of great quality.

Despite my shock and fear, tears of relief spring into my eyes. Pellas and Guthah are among them. Their skin is burned, but the thin web of silvery healing chains is working to rejuvenate the scorched flesh even as I watch. Though, they do not meet my gaze.

“We are not enemies, Zathar,” says Vanerak. “See? I have saved your comrades.”

I blink a few times. No words of reply come.

“You do not thank me?”

“I... I thank you, Runethane.”

“We should leave now. There is a chance that some of Uthrarzak's dwarves fled upward or downward.”

“Leave?”

“Yes. You will leave with me to my newly founded realm, in the far south and depths of Runeking Ulrike's domains.”

It takes all the mental strength I have left to prevent myself stepping back.

“Is there something unclear about my order, Zathar?”

I want to ask why he has saved them, but fear that just the simple act of asking the question might result in one of them dying. He is unpredictable.

“I can see that you are confused.”

“A little,” I say quietly.

“Indeed, I could easily take you by force if I so wished—and that option remains. But the truth is, Zathar, that I have grown to respect you since your coming to Allabrast.”

“Respect me?”

“As I said, you have grown in skill far faster than I ever thought possible. Your runes especially—you well know that I find them fascinating. More than fascinating. They are the path to the future.”

I remain silent.

“For a while I thought I had dreamt your powers,” Vanerak continues. “But the trial confirmed that I had not. It was a sore blow when you defeated Barahtan, yet also a source of great excitement for me. Your final craft and its runes of light, made more powerful and suited to task than any yet, proved to me that you are the future of dwarfkind.”

“I see.” I can't think of anything else to say.

“You are of great importance. Your skills must be developed. I have come to believe that they will develop better in an environment where you are kept safe and content—and free, to a certain extent. So to that end, I wish for you to come with me willingly.”

He gestures to the five survivors.

“I have saved your comrades in order to prove my honesty. I wish only the best for you, Zathar.”

He is leaving out, I think, the other reason that he has taken them—they are a hammer held over me. He will kill them one by one if I disobey him. I do not believe for a moment that he has my best interests in mind. Yet I am not about to say this. Instead I bow low. I have no other choice.

“I understand. I will go with you, my Runethane.”

----------------------------------------

The dwarf in dark armor searches desperately through the tunnels. Flashes of fire light up distant turns and forks, yet they do not illuminate the glint of gold he searches for. He begins to doubt himself. Why should the black dragon have taken that trinket, one of thousands in its small hoard, and one surpassed in power by many orders of magnitude by the artifacts it has gathered since?

Perhaps, he thinks, and not for the first time, he ought to give up.

He stops. The tunnel echoes with the black dragon's roar of pain. Maybe he really should give up this time. Is the golden axehead really so vital to him? He already knows the runes on it. There's no great secret about it.

Or is there? His subsequent crafts, for at least a few years, were not so powerful. There was something special about that axehead, very special. He wants to know exactly what.

And his ally will be curious as well. Probably. It's hard to tell what it wants, even when it attempts to speak clearly.

He hears an echo. It sounds like stones clattering down. There's not much time—the mountain is terribly damaged. He rushes down a turn he doesn't think he's gone down yet. The half-melted relief on the walls seems vaguely familiar. Shit. He has been down this one before.

The echo grows louder. He listens more closely. Is it really stones falling? No, no, it's not. It's someone running very fast, madly fast. And they're very near and getting nearer.

“Shit,” he whispers.

He thinks fast: who could be after him? No one knows he is here. He has barely met another runeknight once in these past two decades. Certainly no one knows of his power.

The footsteps become more distinct. They are no longer echoes. Zakath looks down the corridor and sees a figure charging at him. The runework on the dwarf's titanium armor is complex, and his sword, held above his head, looks very sharp indeed.

Zakath hefts his axe and shouts:

“Halt!”

The figure ignores him. He's close enough for Zakath to make out his eyes. They are dark.

“Who are you?”

“You have what is mine!” the dwarf screams. “Return it to me!”

Zakath's eyes widen. The voice is rough, unpleasant. It's a miner's voice, ruined by rock-dust, but that's not all. There's a touch of cruelty about it. This is a voice he's heard before.

“Hardrick?”

Hardrick swings his sword down in a silver flash. Zakath turns the blow with his axe. The silver blade cuts into the stone wall as if it wasn't there. Hardrick curves it around and cleaves sideways at him.

Zakath jumps back. The blade misses his belly-plate by a half inch.

“Hardrick?” he shouts again, in utter disbelief. “Hardrick, is that you?”

The voice is Hardrick's. Judging by height and length of limb, the body is also Hardrick's. The eyes, though, are not.

“Give me back what is mine!” screams the dwarf.

Zakath suddenly realizes what the figure is. He clicks a switch within his glove. There is a flash of magenta.

Hardrick's sword cleaves through a perfect sphere of stone. The two halves fall to the ground and crack loudly.

“No!” yells the dwarf. “No, no, no!”

----------------------------------------

Broderick finally pulls away from the crack in the floor. He sits back, stunned. His dwarves wait for his orders.

“I cannot believe it,” he says. “I cannot fucking believe it.”

“My Runethane?” one of his runeknights says nervously. “Should we resume the mining?”

“No, no! Throw down your picks!”

There is a loud clatter as the dwarves obey.

“I cannot believe it,” Broderick repeats. He shakes his head. The broken links at his neck pull at his flesh, but he barely feels the pain. “Do you know what has happened? All of you, can you guess?”

No one answers.

“The black dragon is dead! Dead!”

The runeknights remain staring at him. Their disbelief is clear to see. Broderick presses his eye to the crack again, suddenly worried that he's made a mistake—but no. There's no mistake. He knows a dead dragon when he sees one. Its skin is already beginning to flake away like ash.

“It's dead,” he says again as he stands. “We are the luckiest dwarves in history.”

There is a long silence.

“We don't have to fight it again?” someone is eventually brave enough to say.

“No. No more fighting.”

One of his first degrees, who watched the battle from his own hole in the floor, says: “That was Vanerak down there at the end. Thanerzak's best fighter. Maybe his successor.”

“Yes. Looks like he's a Runethane now. Don't know why he showed up—what all that was about—but who cares? The black dragon is dead, everyone! Dead!”

No one cheers. They're too shocked. Broderick shrugs.

“What is more, we will take the credit. Let's go down. Grab us some skin before it all turns to ash—it won't vanish entirely if we hurry it from the corpse fast enough. I don't know why—that's just how dragons are. Convenient!”

“Father!”

There's a commotion, cursing from the back of the cavern, and Braedle comes rushing through the ranks, shoving aside anyone not fast enough to get out of her way. Rock-dust eddies around her. She stops before her father, panting.

“Braedle? What is it?” Broderick frowns. “Did you find Hardrick?”

“Yes, I found him,” she says. Her voice is pained and her face looks very pale. "Or at least... Father, we must talk in private. And quickly."

She falls to one knee. Blood is running from the rent plates on her back and pooling on the floor behind her.

"And someone get me some healing chains. Quickly!"

----------------------------------------

The last of the dragon's black scales turn gray and crumble to ash. The last warmth leaves its ruin. Never again shall it burn another dwarf, destroy another kingdom. Its slayers, who lie beside it in death, have succeeded on their final quest, and can now rest peacefully upon the field of their victory.

All but one, upon whose amulet it is carved that he shall never know peace.

THE END

OF A SUCCESSFUL

DRAGONHUNT